The Society for the History of Women in the Americas and the Bedford Centre for the History of Women at Royal Holloway are holding a conference on Nov 30th - Women as Wives and Workers: Marking Fifty Years of the Feminine Mystique.

2013 marks the fiftieth anniversary of The Feminine Mystique’s publication. From the outset, Betty Friedan’s text had an enormous influence on academic and popular audiences, selling millions and shaping feminist discourse about the housewife throughout the Western world. Yet at the same time, full-time housewifery was becoming both a less common experience and a cultural battlefield. Since the 1950s, levels of employment amongst married women (notably white women) have risen enormously. Women have increasingly been confronted with the ‘superwoman’ paradox, which Friedan herself encapsulated: Writing about ‘the zombie housewife’ and ‘the problem that has no name’ whilst being a working wife and mother. Many other women likewise negotiated domesticity and paid work, but their experiences were by no means uniform and were shaped by various other factors including race, age, sexuality and socio-economic status.

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